To effectively fight human trafficking in the country over 375 officers have been trained on Victim Identification and 80 officers also benefited from an advance level training to fight the menace.

Minister-designate for Gender, Children and Social Protection Agency, Hon Lariba Zuweira Abudu in her key note address on Capacity Building Training Program on Human Trafficking and Irregular Migration for Law enforcement Officers in the Ashanti Region said, the Ministry together with Ghana Civil Aviation in the past weeks has trained 140 Civil Aviation officers on Victim Identification and Counter Trafficking Activities.

She indicated that the training offered to the Aviation officers is to ensure that Ghana airport is well secured and Victims are secured in time.

The Minister was confident that the capacity building will equip the trainees to secure Ghana land borders in the border communities.

The Gender Minister mentioned that the ministry has done a lot in rescue and prosecution of offenders and number of investigations had increased from 87 in 2020 to 108 in 2021.

Number of prosecution according to her had also increased from 13 in 2020 to 22 while the total number of victims increased to 831 in 2021 from 587.

She was optimistic that the main objective of the training which is to build capacities of the law Enforcement Agencies on Human Right Issues, Victim Identification, Rescue Operations, Victims Protections, Investigations and building dockets will be achieved.

The Assistant Commissioner and Ashanti Regional commander for Ghana Immigration Service Charles Bediako said Human Trafficking is a treat to the Nation so Ghanaians should also support the relevant stakeholders with trafficking information to fight the menace entirely.

Source….www.sompaonline.com//93.1